ART SPACES/PUBLIC PLACES: LANDMARK UNVEILS BETH CAMPBELL INSTALLATION
By Jake Gaines Photography courtesy of Thomas Meredith and Callie Richmond
Landmarks recently unveiled a new installation by New York City-based artist Beth Campbell. The site-specific commission, titled Spontaneous future(s),Possible past, comprises a mobile and companion graphite drawing. Both works will be sited at Dell Medical School’s Health Transformation Building at The University of Texas at Austin. We love that Landmarks is the award-winning public art program of The University of Texas at Austin. Its collection of more than forty modern and contemporary works includes commissions from some of the most admired and promising artists of our time.
Photography by Thomas Meredith
The commission was initiated by The University of Texas’ Landmarks, one of the most important public art programs to emerge at an American university. On view throughout Austin’s 433-acre main campus, the collection includes commissions and acquisitions of works by artists such as Michael Ray Charles, Ann Hamilton, Sol LeWitt, Marc Quinn, Ben Rubin, Nancy Rubins, and James Turrell.
In addition, Landmarks presents 28 sculptures on long-term loan from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, featuring works by Magdalena Abakanowicz, Louise Bourgeois, Tony Smith, and Ursula von Rydingsvard, among others. Its collection is broadly accessible and free to all, providing opportunities for students and visitors to engage with great art.
“Beth Campbell’s work delights the eye and stimulates the imagination,” said Andrée Bober, founding director of Landmarks. “It simultaneously investigates and celebrates the human psyche, illuminating our commonalities, our differences, and the relationship between the two.” Referred to by the artist as “drawings in space,” the mobiles are hand made of steel wire. They mimic the twists and turns of complex structures such as the human nervous system, an arboreal root system or social networks. Delicately charting the human condition with all the gravity and humor of real life, Campbell’s new drawing and mobile for Dell Med reveals the interconnectedness of shared experience. Campbell’s works join other Landmarks pieces on display within Dell Med’s buildings.
For more information, visit Landmarks.utexas.edu
